…Close calls
1. I scream. I was buying a double choc-dip from the ice cream van one afternoon when I was 11. After our transaction, I had the cone in one hand and 80c worth of change in 10c coins in the other. I stood in front of the van, about to cross the road, when he started his engine up like he was going to drive through me. Suitably spooked, I ran out onto the road without looking. And that’s when another car drove past and sent me flying. At the top of the road, the driver got out of her hubcap-deficient, tinny, off-white vehicle. “Are you alright?” she bellowed from the top of the hill. “Yes,” I replied with a wobble. And off she drove, leaving me sitting on the road surrounded by 10c coins, with half an empty cone in my hand. My friend who saw the whole thing from across the street laughed. “‘S not funny,” I told her. The ice-cream man beckoned me over and gave me a free replacement double choc-dip – not that I felt like it anymore. Had I been a moment sooner, I’d have surely gone under this car. But as it was, my ankle, which bled because of the exposed screws on the shi!ty car that hit me, was the only thing injured. Well, that and my faith in humanity* - and my taste for soft-serve.
2. Intoxication. Back in Edinburgh, I did a wee video tour of our apartment. This included showing “the people watching at home” our refrigerator, which was packed with a metric f’tonne of wine. My favourite was one marked “ROSE”. And I say “ROSE” because it was, without exaggeration, labelled in about a 700 point font. In the process of dragging out the “ROSE” to show “the people watching at home”, I nearly smashed about 15 other bottles, in a cascade of glassy booziness. Again, all’s well that ends well – no wine was harmed and, best of all, I caught my idiotic slapstick moment on video.
3. Dodge. I was at the circus fairground dodge-’em cars once when I was 8 years old or so. To this day I love dodge-’ems. I hate spinning, I hate being upside down, I’m not a massive fan of heights. But I can definitely get on board with a need for speed. And if a few crazy collisions are involved, all the better. I held my breath watching as the cars zoomed round and round when I saw it. The purple one. In that blurry, song-filled moment, I knew – I had to have the shiny, deep-purple metallic dodge-’em. I watched it like a starving bounty hunter in the wilderness watches a wild boar – or an episode of Jamie Oliver via portable TV (an essential item for any adventurer). Round and round it went until, finally, all the cars started to slow. Determined to get my purple racer, I ran out onto the track. Except they didn’t stop. The cars all sped up again, and my beloved purple car came tearing towards me. It hit me, I bounced onto the ‘hood’, and the guy driving it grabbed my arm and held onto me. There I was, flailing about on the front of this little car, with a guy steering with one hand – and saving my limbs** with the other. It was a close call, but fortunately it worked. I got the purple car. Oh and, like, I didn’t die (Darwin Awards, anyone?).
